


The Five Dreams Link Never Meant to Steal

by aimmyarrowshigh



Category: Beautiful Creatures (2013), The Caster Chronicles - Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Genre: 5 Times, Canon Compliant, Dreamwalking, Gen, Multi, Succubi & Incubi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-17
Updated: 2011-01-17
Packaged: 2017-12-12 14:45:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/812753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimmyarrowshigh/pseuds/aimmyarrowshigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This incubus business, Link always thought, was no walk in the park.  It wasn’t no afternoon at the Gatlin County Fair pickin’ up chicks and drinkin’ Coke, neither.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Five Dreams Link Never Meant to Steal

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings** : Spoilers for the end of _Beautiful Darkness_!  
>  **Disclaimer** : I don't own anything. All characters, settings, and proprietary language are owned by the author of the work from which this is derived.  
>  **Notes** : **Winner of Round 1, Challenge 1 @ !** Thanks to everyone who voted and congratulations on stunning pieces to all other entrants! :) 
> 
> ORIGINALLY POSTED [HERE](http://aimmyarrowshigh.livejournal.com/26674.html) on 17 January 2011.

**  
The Five Dreams Link Never Meant to Steal **  


****

**_001\. His Mama_  
**

This incubus business, Link always thought, was no walk in the park. It wasn’t no afternoon at the Gatlin County Fair pickin’ up chicks and drinkin’ Coke, neither.

No, it was more like lurkin’ in the corner of his mother’s bedroom in the middle of the night, feeding on her creepy dreams.

_Cat Week: Watch Mister Paws’ new litter demonstration! Order now! Fuzzles and Princess play the piano, up next!_

And Ethan thought Link was kidding when he said his mama watched weird things on television. Well, maybe he had been, then, but she dreamed about it anyway. Commercials, even.

Link sighed and slid down the wall – beige, Bible verses his mother cross-stitched in high school hanging in a gilt-edged frame every few feet until the lace-swathed window – and put his spiky blond head into his hands. Of course Vampire Boy had to bite _him_ (Blood Incubus, fine, whatever, _Liv_ ). Why couldn’t John Breed have bitten Ethan? Or Liv? They were the ones who cared about the Caster world.

_Coming soon: Tubbie and Miss Marbles have kittens! How to spot a purebred –_

Link groaned mournfully and looked at the verse just above his head.

  
_If you offer your food to the hungry_  
_and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light_  
_shall rise in the darkness and your gloom_  
_be like the noonday._  
Isaiah 58:10

Well, great. Noonday sun’d burn him to pieces, he was a Dark creature, and all he had to satisfy his needs tonight were some dreams about well-behaved cats.

Worst. Meal. Ever. 

**_002\. Mitchell Wate_ **

“Hiya, Wesley.”

Link felt guilt sink in his stomach like a stone when Mitchell came outta his study for breakfast and gave him a cheery wave. Well, as cheery as Mitchell ever was anymore.

“Hey, there, Mr. Wate,” Link said. “You, uh – you sleep well?”

Ethan shot Link a look that coulda killed (if he weren’t already dead, or somethin’) and Amma picked up the One-Eyed Menace as she was like to hit him upside his head. _They knew._

They knew he’d been in Mitchell’s study all night, eatin’ up his dreams about Lila. He took them — the dreams about Lila fryin’ green tomatoes in the kitchen, or dancing to Pink Floyd in the yard with little Ethan that summer when they were nine years old, or writing away in her study with a smudge a’ ink on her nose. Mitchell would never get those dreams back. Those moments with Lila.

Mr. Wate smiled at him across Amma’s kitchen table. “Yeah, I slept real well. How about you, Wesley? You’re here early.” 

**_003\. Ethan_ **

Link tried to be clinical about it. He really did. The good Lord knew he did not want to pay attention to the dreams he took out of Ethan’s head, not when they were like this, anyway.

But call it adolescence or call it curiosity: 

Lena Duchannes was naked as a jaybird in his best friend’s head, and Link couldn’t help looking.

**_004\. Lena_ **

Lena’s dreams were confusing. Lena was confusing. Whenever Link tried to feed on her dreams, he ended up with an upset stomach after, like there was somethin’ in ‘em that just didn’t agree with him — and this was not a common occurrence for Wesley Jefferson Lincoln, before _or_ after Vampire Boy bit him. 

His mama’s dreams were easy, like one a’ Amma’s breakfasts used to be: the scrambled egg and bacon and biscuits and gravy and chocolate milk and grits’n’cheese of his new diet. It was always the same, and always filled him enough, but he still felt a hollow after, like maybe he needed to go to Dar-E-Keen and get some French fries. And a malt. Maybe a cone.

Mitchell’s dreams were sorta his new peppermint schnaaps — good while they lasted, more or less, and better because they were rare and forbidden. But the guilt and the headache after just wasn’t worth the taste.

Ethan’s dreams were easy. Dar-E-Keen burgers by the dozen had always been Link’s style – yeah, maybe there was some guilt and it wasn’t exactly the smartest choice, but damn if it weren’t good. Ethan _always_ dreamed about Lena.

But Lena’s dreams were like the Thai food Ethan’s Aunt Caroline introduced them to one Flag Day when they were fourteen and visitin’ her in Savannah. It was… good. Kinda. It weren’t bad, anyway, and it was new and interestin’, which was always nice, comin’ from Gatlin. But there was all this stuff in it that didn’t make much sense to Link, like chopped up peanuts and somethin’ that she called ‘beansprouts’ that didn’t look like nothin’ he’d ever willingly put his mouth before.

Lena’s dreams had all kindsa weird stuff in them. And Link wasn’t really sure whether he was supposed to feed on that or not.

**_005\. Amma_ **

Link was ravenous. Three nightsa nothin’ but Mr. Tibbles’ll do that to a Dream Incubus. 

And who always fed Link best? _I mean, when food was an option. Danged Vampire Boy._

Link felt as nervous sneaking into Amma’s bedroom that night as he _ever_ had messing around in her basement that summer when he was nine years old. There was all sortsa hoodoo-juju on the doorframes and window frames and bed frame that was supposed to keep Incubi like him _out_ , he knew that sure as he knew his own name, and he knew that if he got burned or sliced or cursed or damned by one’a her graveyard bones, Amma would show no mercy.

But he was _hungry_ , and Amma had always fed him. So he sneaked into her room and settled himself down in the corner –

And the One-Eyed Menace came down upside his head. 

“That is _it_ , Wesley Jefferson Lincoln! Oh don’tchu lookit me like that, I ain’t feel sorry for you one bit! You are gonna get on that phone right now and call your mama and tell her you been sneakin’ around a old lady’s house all night and I’mma tell her whatchu were doin’ in my basement that summer you was nine years old!”

 

 

   
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